


swirl in the white evening sun, tell me that i'm the only one

by comfortcharacters



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Enemies, Mutual Pining, childhood friends to enemies to lovers but that tag doesn't exist, i have never watched she-ra and have limited knowledge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29236302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comfortcharacters/pseuds/comfortcharacters
Summary: But nothing in Catra’s life is ever easy, and someone up there must have something out for her, because it isn’t another minute before she hears footsteps approaching the balcony and encroaching on her space.She’s just about ready to launch into a rant, a 'get the fuck out' resting on the tip of her tongue, before it dies immediately.Catra certainly wasn’t expecting her.(or, catra and adora meet again at a college party, many years and miscommunications later.)
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	swirl in the white evening sun, tell me that i'm the only one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ruthlessgame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthlessgame/gifts).



One day, Catra will learn to make better decisions. Today was not that day.

Catra didn’t know what she was expecting when she escaped for a moment of peace, sitting by herself on the edge of nowhere (read: some shitty balcony in some shitty college kid’s apartment). She knew by now that escaping without notice was nothing but a lucid dream with friends like hers, concerned beyond belief, always looking to mend the cracks that she did nothing but aggravate. Progress is progress, but parties still felt suffocating, somehow, and nothing made Catra cascade faster into the depths of her own depravity than crowds of people who really couldn’t give a shit about each other, anyway.

It all feels terribly asinine. Catra doesn’t know why she agreed to go.

(She does. She always knows. But fuck if she’d ever be willing to admit it.)

Looking down below and staring at the tiny people helps. From so far up, they can’t see her, or judge her, or dare to know her; for one brief moment, Catra is alone. She gently lets go of the chair that she was gripping on to, slowly bringing color back into her knuckles and letting her blood circulate again.

But nothing in Catra’s life is _ever_ easy, and someone up there must have something out for her, because it isn’t another minute before she hears footsteps approaching the balcony and encroaching on _her space_.

She’s just about ready to launch into a rant, a _get the fuck out_ resting on the tip of her tongue, before it dies immediately.

Catra certainly wasn’t expecting _her_.

Her, with her faint perfume like something belonging to a woodland creature, her blonde hair pulled up in her never-changing ponytail, her worried eyes searching for an invitation, an opening, _anything_ in Catra’s.

Catra looks away. She doesn’t dare to let her find it.

“Catra?” she whispers, almost like she’s afraid to spook her, “Are you okay?”

Catra takes a deep breath. She wasn’t ready to see her, not like this, not when she was barely back on the edge of normal. She thought she’d have more _time,_ more _control_ when it finally happened, even if she looked for her in every corner of every crowd.

But life’s a bitch, opportunities are fleeting, and Catra forced herself out of bed every Friday night to attend frat parties since the semester started for this express purpose. She might as well get it over with.

“Parties suck ass, but other than that, pretty fucking great, _Adora_ ,” Catra says, and Adora visibly winces at the venom in her tone. “How’ve _you_ been since coming back to the city for uni – what was it? A year ago? Two years ago?”

It’s been exactly one year, thirty-five weeks, and four days since Adora returned. But Catra wasn’t counting.

“It’s been… good?” Adora starts, hesitantly taking a step forward. Catra narrows her eyes and takes a step back. “I… I missed the city, you know? It was hard to do high school so far from everything, _everyone_ I knew.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been that hard, right?” Catra says, quietly, and Adora looks at her in confused silence.   
  
“What--“

“I don’t know, Adora, it doesn’t sound like it was _that_ fucking hard for you to pack your bags and leave without telling anyone.”

“I didn’t—”

“After all, it seems like you were having a _real fun time_ with all your new prep school friends if you never even bothered to write back to a single text I sent you.”

“Catra—”

“I waited for _years_ , Adora,” Catra starts, a traitorous hiccup making its way into her throat, eyes shining with unshed tears, hands gripping the sides of her own shirt so hard that it just might get torn to shreds. Adora seems like she’s barely breathing.

Catra can’t look at her.

“I waited for _years_ for you. Every single day in class. I waited like an idiot because you never told me you were leaving.”

Adora is silent. She’s shaking, and she’s silent, and it’s been _nearly six years_ since Catra’s seen her standing there and _god_ it hurts more than she ever thought it would.

“I really thought you wouldn’t… you _couldn’t_ just leave for all of high school without telling me. Adora, what the _fuck_ happened?”

Catra was prepared, at least a little, for an epic confrontation. She was ready to fight, physically or verbally, anything to replace the psychological torment she’s been feeling for the greater part of adolescence. She thought she wanted to punch Adora _hard_ , right in the chest, anything to come close to mimicking the bruised and breaking mess of a heart that Adora had left behind. She thought she wanted Adora to punch her back, to scream at her, to take whatever pitiful remnants of a friendship remained and burn them to the ground.

She thought she wanted all of this. But she wasn’t prepared for the painfully human Adora that faced her, instead of the cold-hearted monster of her mind.

The _real_ Adora, standing there, looking like she’s about to lose it.

“Catra,” Adora says before pausing, breathing deeply, and taking another step forward. Catra can’t move away. Not this time. “Catra, _what_ are you talking about? I texted you. Right before I left, right after I left.”

Adora pauses and shifts uncomfortably.

“For, like, months. Every morning. Even though you didn’t respond,” she says quietly, and this time _she’s_ the one staring at the ground. Catra stares at her, eyes narrowing in disbelief.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Adora. I never got a single fucking text from you.”

Adora’s eyes grow darker as she brings her phone out, scrolling to the bottom of her message exchanges until she reaches the final thread, a full four years older than any of the ones before it.

Catra sees her contact name: a simple _catra <3_.

“Open it.”

She does. And, almost immediately, she feels tears start to prick at the corner of her eyes.

Because there, in all those stupid texts she never got, she sees _Adora_ , the Adora that she thought she lost, the one she fell in love with all those years ago. And try as she might to deny it, she sees her loving her back: she sees it in the short and quick _good morning <3_ texts that reach her now, at half-past midnight; she sees it in the memes, scattered lovingly throughout, adorned with an _lol this is u_ for every angry cat meme.

She sees it in the long and winding paragraphs, scattered sparingly throughout, words tripping over themselves in pain and anguish about never getting a single text or call back after so many months apart.

Catra remembers, suddenly, a lot more than she thought she did from her freshman year of high school.

She remembers waiting by the phone for Adora’s call, while her mother told her she was just wasting her time. She remembers wondering why the texts she tried to send Adora turned green instead of blue, while her mother said that Adora probably just changed her phone to an Android.

She remembers, with much too vivid of a recollection, just how eagerly her own mother encouraged her to forget Adora when she came home one afternoon, bursting into tears at yet another day of silence. And she remembers being encouraged to put it all behind, focus on her studies, and prove her worth through an elite university acceptance.

Standing in front of Adora now, Catra can’t help but think: funny how that turned out.

“Holy shit,” Catra says, staring into the ground in disbelief. “Did my own _mom_ block your number on my phone?”

Adora does a double-take at this – whatever she was expecting, whatever reaction she was hoping for, none of it involved sabotage.

“Your mom… she hated me that much?” Adora says, falling into one of the chairs on the balcony. Catra sits down next to her, careful with her movements around Adora now that she knows the truth.

“She didn’t hate _you_. At least, I don’t think she did. Maybe she wanted to limit my distractions or something. I don’t have a fucking clue.” Catra looks up at Adora, who’s looking into the sky in frustration, probably thinking the same thing as Catra: six years, lost forever, completely out of their control.

Catra holds a lot of space for anger. But something about knowing that Adora didn’t hate her, ignore her, _abandon_ her intentionally all those years ago, has her feeling like anger is a wasted emotion, at least right now. She finds it dissipating quickly the longer she looks over at Adora.

“I’m sorry,” they say, almost simultaneously, Adora staring at her hands in her lap, Catra staring at the slope of Adora’s cheek.

“Adora,” Catra starts, and she has no idea what she’s saying, she’s long since abandoned any pretense of normalcy, but she knows she has to say it, “I was ready to go to _every_ single frat party in this goddamn college just to find you and curse you out. I was ready to go through _panic attacks_ just for that chance.”

Catra slides over in her chair and grabs Adora’s hands in hers.

“I hated you. So, so much.”

Adora looks down at their joined hands and looks back up at Catra in confusion.

“Is there a ‘but’ to this?”

“ _But_ ,” Catra says, letting out a huff of frustration as she runs her thumb across Adora’s knuckles, “I think I may have just… like liked you, a bit. And didn’t really know what to do with it when you… you know.”

Adora raises her eyebrows and takes her hands out of Catra’s, putting them around her neck instead.

“Oh, you _like liked_ me. Is that it?” Adora says, and there’s a hint of a teasing smile there, and Catra would swear that she’s fourteen again and all is right with the world.

“Shut _up_ , Adora, you know what I mean,” Catra mumbles, just as she awkwardly tries to place her hands around Adora’s waist before Adora sighs and places them for her.

Neither of them makes a move.

“Well?”

“Well, what? Are you gonna kiss me?”

“Catra, _you_ came over to _me_ first.”

“So, that means it’s _your turn_ to initiate.”

“Catra, you’re being obstinate right now, just kiss me—”

“Adora, who the _fuck_ uses words like obstinate—”

Adora cuts her off, patience finally wearing too thin to function, and Catra has never been so grateful or so utterly gone for someone’s short fuse.

Adora kisses like Catra matters. Adora kisses Catra like being with her is everything, like they’re now on track to make up for six years of lost time, like she wouldn’t be letting go.

Catra kisses back, wrapping her hands around Adora’s shoulders and grasping tightly at her jacket, and lets herself be swept up in their fantasy.

Catra wants nothing more than to believe it’s true.

**Author's Note:**

> hi. i challenged myself to write for a fandom that i am not actively a part of. 
> 
> everyone's been bugging me to watch she-ra. I've never seen the show. i know the characters only slightly.
> 
> I listened to heat wave by snail mail and got to writing.
> 
> hope you enjoyed!


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